1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plasma display device, and more particularly, to a plasma display device in which a reset discharge operation is performed alternately in a plurality of sub-discharge cells of each discharge cell.
2. Description of the Related Art
Plasma display panels (PDPs) display images by exciting phosphors with the use of vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) rays obtained by a discharge of the mixture of inert gases.
PDPs are generally easy to be implemented as thin large-scale display devices. In addition, since PDPs have a simple structure, it is generally easy to fabricate PDPs. Moreover, PDPs generally have a higher luminance and higher light-emission efficiency than other flat-panel display devices. Alternating-current (AC) surface-discharge tri-electrode PDPs, in particular, can accumulate wall charges thereon during a discharge operation and can thus protect electrodes against sputtering resulting from the discharge operation. Therefore, AC surface-discharge tri-electrode PDPs can be driven even in a low-voltage environment and have a relatively long lifetime.
In order to realize various grayscale levels for an image to be displayed, PDPs may be driven in a time-division manner in which each frame is divided into a reset period for initializing all cells, an address period for selecting a number of cells, and a sustain period for causing a display discharge operation in the selected cells. During the reset period, a reset discharge operation is performed in all cells. As a result, the dark area luminance of a PDP may be as high as about 0.3-0.5 cd/m2. Thus, there is a clear limit in improving the dark room contrast ratio of a PDP due to such a high dark area luminance.